Friday, July 2, 2010

The first thing that should be heeded by entrepreneurs regarding their logo design is the understanding of the logo by the target market. No matter how artistic or creative your logo design is, it won’t work if no one understands the meaning of it and what it’s about. So the first question an entrepreneur should ask to himself / herself is, “What would people make out of my corporate logo design”?

There is no doubt about a logo being the face of any organization. It is the first thing that meets the eye when people look at your company’s logo design. Logos are brand ambassadors of your business therefore; they should reflect the true character and the very nature of your business. It is not at all about having a creative logo design which seems like ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and need experts to decipher them. In fact the perfect logo design should be strong and meaningful yet simple enough to be understood by potential customers.

Having said that, one might be thinking of a way to have a corporate logo design that is strong enough to be the brand ambassador on one side, and simple enough to be clearly understood on the other. This leads entrepreneurs to seek help form professional logo designers who have the ability to serve the right purpose.

The first and foremost thing to do when hiring professional logo designers is finding out what they understand of your company. Before starting to work upon your corporate logo design, logo designers should be well aware what your business is all about. Conveying the correct message to your logo designer is the key to getting what you actually want.

Apprise them of each and every aspect of your business, what you do, what it takes to do that and what you really want in your corporate logo design. Then let them come with their own ideas and sample logo designs for you. While selecting from the samples, look for the most meaningful and easy to understand logo design.

Another factor while considering the best logo design for your company is knowing the value of colour in a particular logo design. The importance of colour should always be kept in mind. Choose appealing colours for your logo design which do not overburden the eyes.

Last but not the least, look at your logo as an outsider in order to judge whether or not your corporate logo design would be understood by others.

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

A logo a day keeps the doctor away. No it’s not what the doctor ordered. It just crossed my mind when I was writing an article one day. Then I went on to meet a friend who happens to be a logo designing professional. I am sure when you meet him you’ll say, “This guy is really encourageable”. He told me about some interesting events that took place in his professional life. I have intentionally omitted names of the client and his company from the narrative.

“I was getting a brief from a client one day which is a routine part of a logo designer’s work. This client happens to be from the clothing industry. The interesting thing is that he was insisting upon me to make him a unique logo design which could not be matched with any other logo design in the whole world. My imagination was running out of ideas and I was running out of patience. It was useless trying to make him understand that even other unique logo designs have some sort of similarity to another. This is by mere chance and there is no deliberate infringement of copyright involved.

I showed him examples of quite a few logos that looked slightly similar in design but he kept on with his argument. But then all of a sudden, a thought came to my mind and bingo, I got what he wanted.

I asked him to contact me the next week when I’ll give him two options to choose from. In the meantime, I pondered upon the client’s brief, the nature of his business and the company name. Then I searched for similar logo designs of companies similar in nature. I looked at each logo design individually and compared them with each other. It was quite astonishing that 70% of the logo designs had a slight similarity to one or the other logo design.

Nevertheless, I went on to work on his logo design and completed it within the given time frame. When my client came to see me the next week, I showed him the two options I had developed and he was speechless. He liked both of them and said he would use one logo design for his winter campaign and the other for summer.

You must be wondering what I did to satisfy my client. Well you see, I just took the name of his company and put it on a four hole button and that was it. Because I did not find a single logo design that had the image of a button, I used it for my client’s logo. Now a button is just an accessory for clothing but it was so natural that my client and I were both fascinated”.

Wow, so simple yet novel. I hope you all enjoyed this real life account of a logo designing professional. I’ll try to bring more of such interviews for you in the future.

End Note: The contents are the view points of the author and questions/responses are MORE than welcome.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Logos serve as representatives for a business firm and therefore, a company logo design should be accurately expressive towards the nature of that specific company. Monograms have always been reflective of the very essence of the particular company they represent and inaccurately or poorly designed logos can have adverse effects on the corporate image for that matter.

Whenever you see a company logo design, you are reminded of its owner company if it’s a famous brand. If we take the Philips logo in view, almost everyone would identify it instantly. Same is with the Coke logo and the Pepsi logo design. But what do these trade mark logo designs represent as stand alone symbols? No doubt they have become the icons of identity for these firms but then, if an alien visiting earth for the first time sees the Pepsi logo. What would he / she think? Nothing but the letters P. E. P. S. I. until someone explains the whole idea.

The Philips logo design has shining stars in it which denote something that shines or light / a source of light / light bulb and the idea can be grasped with a bit of thinking.

You must have seen logos of military organisations worldwide. Each and every one has a logo design that shows some sort of weaponry or the other and weapons connect with the military and eventually, war. Similarly, a company logo design should mirror the very product or service provided by that company. In addition, it is not necessary to relate logos solely to commercial organizations.

Here we can have a look at the United Nations logo and see if it serves the purpose.

Oh yes, it certainly does. The image of the globe represents the entity in which all nations exist and the olive branches covering the globe denote world peace as the guardian of nations which stand united under the cover of United Nations Organization. It is therefore considered to be a perfect business logo design.

Having said all of the above, it proves that entrepreneurs must know the importance of a logo design and its relevance to the business it represents.

End Note: The contents are the view points of the author and questions/responses are MORE than welcome.